Rotary scrubbing brushes are customarily used on a machine for carpet scrubbing, floor scrubbing and other hard surface scrubbing and cleaning. With a machine using this rotary brush, a floor or other hard surface may be cleaned in an efficient manner. Mounted on such a machine for the direct surface or other floor contact is a rotary brush.
Rotary scrubbing brushes are used for carpet scrubbing, and other hard surface scrubbing and cleaning. With repeated use, the brush fibers tend to flex and bend thereby significantly reducing its effectiveness as a scrubbing implement.
The rotary brush serves well for cleaning. A general structure of the brush can be found in U.S. Pat. No. 5,050,262 to Terrance J. Malish. Many other rotary brushes are known to be suitable for use on the machine.
The brush is mounted on the base of the machine in contact with the floor. The machine provides the power to rotate the brush. Customarily in the industry the brush rotates in a clockwise position. With this use, the brushes can be permanently bent in one direction causing the brush to become ineffective as a scrubbing tool. One machine on which the rotary brushes are used is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,261,140 to Thomas A. Szymanski.
Typically, machines used in the industry have the brushes rotating in a clockwise direction as one looks down on the top of the machine. Such rotation forces the brush in counter clockwise direction. When the bristles of the brush tend to stay in that counterclockwise direction, the brush loses its effectiveness as a cleaning agent and must be replaced at considerable expense.
This type of machine, with the rotary brush attached thereto, requires a certain degree of expertise to operate. Due to the brush rotation lifting up on the handle causes the machine to move to the right. Pushing down on the handle causes the machine to the left. The forward motion is accomplished by placing weight on the right hand side of the handle. The rearward motion is accomplished by placing weight on the left hand side of the handle. It requires a reasonable amount of skill to direct the machine using the rotary scrubbing brush in the appropriate manner.
While it is possible to incorporate a reversing mechanism on the machine, and avoid having the brush move in one direction entirely, such a reversing mechanism causes too much confusion in the adjustment of how to handle the machine for the operator. The standard procedures of handling and operating are completely reversed.
Also, it is somewhat difficult to examine the brush in use and make the appropriate reversal at the desired time. It is clearly necessary to be able to efficiently examine the brush and reverse the machine rotation thereof at the appropriate time.
As is clear to one skilled in this art, the brush bristles are most effective when they are substantially perpendicular to the brush base. Use sets the bristles away from that perpendicular status. A desired brush treatment can correct this problem. However, no such device is available.
What is desired is a device which can apply pressure on the bristles and reverse the bristles at the convenience of the operator. If such a reversal of the bristles can be accomplished, the life of the brush can be increased by a factor of at least two (2), if not four (4). However, there is no known apparatus or method for achieving this desired result.